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Correct. Apple's overall strategy with its short 7-year lifecycles is to use planned obsolescence in order to continue extracting money from its consumers. An

Correct. Apple's overall strategy with its short 7-year lifecycles is to use planned obsolescence in order to continue extracting money from its consumers. An 8 year old desktop running Windows 10 or Ubuntu 20.04 is perfectly functional today, and will continue to be kept up to date for many more years in the future. An 8 year old Mac Mini runs either of those OSes pretty well. Now that Boot Camp will no longer be supported, an Apple Silicon Mac Mini bought in 2020 would have to be thrown away in 2028 since it will no longer receive security patches. This is... not good.

mahgnous 6y ago
I have no doubt in my mind that they won't also try to force everyone to the App Store with these new "Macs"
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
robertoandred 6y ago
Ten- and eleven-year-old Macs are getting security updates now. Why do you think that will change with Apple silicon?
- FireBeyond 6y ago
  Which ones are those? Not the 2009 iMacs that can run, at most 10.11 El Capitan, which stopped receiving security updates two years ago.
  - kalleboo 6y ago
    macOS High Sierra runs on the following Macintosh computers:[5] * iMac: Late 2009 or later * MacBook: Late 2009 or later * MacBook Pro: Mid 2010 or later * MacBook Air: Late 2010 or later * Mac Mini: Mid 2010 or later * Mac Pro: Mid 2010 or later
kt103099 6y ago
What drives most of the limited backward compatibility is the amount of testing required. If you want to officially support new features on an older harder platform, you should test that they work. And fix any bugs found. And maybe some of those older machines don't have hardware for a new feature, so you have to devise a way to fail gracefully. At some point you just need to cut off the older platforms and move on. Similar reasons many web developer complained in the past about having to support old versions of Internet Explorer. No one accused anyone of 'planned obsolecense'. BTW, the author of this article is not ignorant in these affairs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Sinofsky https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Sinofsky
- damnyou 6y ago
  Apple makes far too much money for this to be a legitimate excuse.
  - mthoms 6y ago
    I thought the article illustrated very well why "money" should not be the prime consideration for supporting something (in the short to medium term). They're playing the long game.
    - damnyou 6y ago
      Tell that to all the game developers whose games can no longer be played on Catalina.
      - mthoms 6y ago
        Tell them what? Those developers already know that Apple is known for removing support for aging technologies way ahead of the curve. They also know that being willing to move fast and break backwards compatibility is what makes Apple, Apple. It's a major point of the article: >There’s a whole book to be written about the “deal” a company makes to [...] promise compatibility. The reward of success is extremely high, but it is almost a Faustian bargain because you will absolutely cede the right to innovate No one said that there weren't downsides to Apple's approach. The downsides are well known. And, as a user I'm slightly annoyed about the loss of 32-bit support. But if 32 bit support and backward compatibility is important, there's plenty of options including Windows, Linux or dual-booting MacOS versions [0]. Personally, I'm willing to suffer the short term pain of lost backward compatibility because I'm excited about the future of computing. As a user and developer I've already lived through 16->32->64 bit transitions (and similar disruptions). They suck at the time, but they're ultimately worth it. You can't stop progress. [0] https://www.macworld.co.uk/how-to/mac-software/dual-boot-mac-3659676/ https://www.macworld.co.uk/how-to/mac-software/dual-boot-mac...
LeoPanthera 6y ago
I think you are confusing "won't run the latest macOS" with "doesn't get security updates", which simply isn't true. Apple is still providing security updates for Macs well over a decade old.
- damnyou 6y ago
  Ahh, last I checked Apple would only do 1 more year of security updates. Glad to see they've changed their stance. 10 is better than 7 but not as good as the 15+ years Windows and Linux offer.
  - andrewnicolalde 6y ago
    When on earth did you check??
    - tpetry 6y ago
      They are not absolutely wrong. Old macOS versions do get security updates sometimes. Almost all the time when something really critical has bern found, but the most current macOS is receiving much more security updates. And i dont believe that these more security bugs are only in the newest version. Maybe they are hard to fix in old versions because they can‘t be backported?
cercatrova 6y ago
And I mean, if you're a company that does planned obsolescence and your users will continue to buy your latest products without caring about repairing them, why wouldn't you continue to use planned obsolescence?
- cafed00d 6y ago
  it depends on how much "consumer effort" repairing costs. Most people seem to replace their phones on a regular 2-3 year cadence. Much less so on laptops -- and surely Macs tend to get supported for long period of time; I can run Big Sur on a 6 year old Mac. Same with iPhones -- iPhone 6S is going to run iOS 14. As a consumer, if I were to buy an alternative to the iPhone -- which is practically _only_ Android -- then I'm looking at software obsolescence much earlier; I mean, look at Android 11 & iOS 14. iPhones released in 2015 are still supported but Android 11 goes only as far back as Pixel 2, a phone from 2017. So it doesn't seem like Apple is a company that is using "planned obsolescence" from a purely functionality perspective. Sure, hardware degrades in quality overtime -- but that's a function of physical constraints -- not business strategy to get people to buy new stuff; well, at least for the _most_ (some?) part.
- arvinsim 6y ago
  Last time I heard, Apple was an environment conscious company.
valuearb 6y ago
Apple has by far the highest customer satisfaction in the business. An 8 year old Mini is still going to run fine for years to come. Apple should put its efforts into creating the future fir those willing to pay for it, not grumps with 8 year old computers too cheap to upgrade to far better hardware.

mahgnous 6y ago

I have no doubt in my mind that they won't also try to force everyone to the App Store with these new "Macs"

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

robertoandred 6y ago

Ten- and eleven-year-old Macs are getting security updates now. Why do you think that will change with Apple silicon?

FireBeyond 6y ago
Which ones are those? Not the 2009 iMacs that can run, at most 10.11 El Capitan, which stopped receiving security updates two years ago.
- kalleboo 6y ago
  macOS High Sierra runs on the following Macintosh computers:[5] * iMac: Late 2009 or later * MacBook: Late 2009 or later * MacBook Pro: Mid 2010 or later * MacBook Air: Late 2010 or later * Mac Mini: Mid 2010 or later * Mac Pro: Mid 2010 or later

kt103099 6y ago

What drives most of the limited backward compatibility is the amount of testing required. If you want to officially support new features on an older harder platform, you should test that they work. And fix any bugs found. And maybe some of those older machines don't have hardware for a new feature, so you have to devise a way to fail gracefully. At some point you just need to cut off the older platforms and move on. Similar reasons many web developer complained in the past about having to support old versions of Internet Explorer. No one accused anyone of 'planned obsolecense'. BTW, the author of this article is not ignorant in these affairs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Sinofsky https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Sinofsky

damnyou 6y ago
Apple makes far too much money for this to be a legitimate excuse.
- mthoms 6y ago
  I thought the article illustrated very well why "money" should not be the prime consideration for supporting something (in the short to medium term). They're playing the long game.
  - damnyou 6y ago
    Tell that to all the game developers whose games can no longer be played on Catalina.
    - mthoms 6y ago
      Tell them what? Those developers already know that Apple is known for removing support for aging technologies way ahead of the curve. They also know that being willing to move fast and break backwards compatibility is what makes Apple, Apple. It's a major point of the article: >There’s a whole book to be written about the “deal” a company makes to [...] promise compatibility. The reward of success is extremely high, but it is almost a Faustian bargain because you will absolutely cede the right to innovate No one said that there weren't downsides to Apple's approach. The downsides are well known. And, as a user I'm slightly annoyed about the loss of 32-bit support. But if 32 bit support and backward compatibility is important, there's plenty of options including Windows, Linux or dual-booting MacOS versions [0]. Personally, I'm willing to suffer the short term pain of lost backward compatibility because I'm excited about the future of computing. As a user and developer I've already lived through 16->32->64 bit transitions (and similar disruptions). They suck at the time, but they're ultimately worth it. You can't stop progress. [0] https://www.macworld.co.uk/how-to/mac-software/dual-boot-mac-3659676/ https://www.macworld.co.uk/how-to/mac-software/dual-boot-mac...

LeoPanthera 6y ago

I think you are confusing "won't run the latest macOS" with "doesn't get security updates", which simply isn't true. Apple is still providing security updates for Macs well over a decade old.

damnyou 6y ago
Ahh, last I checked Apple would only do 1 more year of security updates. Glad to see they've changed their stance. 10 is better than 7 but not as good as the 15+ years Windows and Linux offer.
- andrewnicolalde 6y ago
  When on earth did you check??
  - tpetry 6y ago
    They are not absolutely wrong. Old macOS versions do get security updates sometimes. Almost all the time when something really critical has bern found, but the most current macOS is receiving much more security updates. And i dont believe that these more security bugs are only in the newest version. Maybe they are hard to fix in old versions because they can‘t be backported?

cercatrova 6y ago

And I mean, if you're a company that does planned obsolescence and your users will continue to buy your latest products without caring about repairing them, why wouldn't you continue to use planned obsolescence?

cafed00d 6y ago
it depends on how much "consumer effort" repairing costs. Most people seem to replace their phones on a regular 2-3 year cadence. Much less so on laptops -- and surely Macs tend to get supported for long period of time; I can run Big Sur on a 6 year old Mac. Same with iPhones -- iPhone 6S is going to run iOS 14. As a consumer, if I were to buy an alternative to the iPhone -- which is practically _only_ Android -- then I'm looking at software obsolescence much earlier; I mean, look at Android 11 & iOS 14. iPhones released in 2015 are still supported but Android 11 goes only as far back as Pixel 2, a phone from 2017. So it doesn't seem like Apple is a company that is using "planned obsolescence" from a purely functionality perspective. Sure, hardware degrades in quality overtime -- but that's a function of physical constraints -- not business strategy to get people to buy new stuff; well, at least for the _most_ (some?) part.
arvinsim 6y ago
Last time I heard, Apple was an environment conscious company.

valuearb 6y ago

Apple has by far the highest customer satisfaction in the business. An 8 year old Mini is still going to run fine for years to come. Apple should put its efforts into creating the future fir those willing to pay for it, not grumps with 8 year old computers too cheap to upgrade to far better hardware.